Has experience lost its value?

I have always thought experience was rather overvalued. I spent some time working in a German business environment, where it seemed that qualification and experience were everything, performance track record almost nothing. I saw the results – an intensely hierarchical workplace filled with snobbery, dead wood and underpaid youngsters.

It was not so different in the Netherlands, especially in technical fields.  I used to sit on a contracts board for a business that hired contract engineers. Often the specification would require a ridiculous period of experience in the field, such as twenty-five years. I used to wonder, aloud, what possible extra value that twenty-fifth year might have brought to make one candidate qualified and another not. I learned that it was often a ruse, akin to a closed shop, to make sure the same individuals were hired again and again. Some people didn’t like seeing me on that contracts board!

But then I could support an argument that, say, ten years of experience in a field might be a reasonable requirement. After all, a professional will not experience all the possible situations very often, and certainly not in a classroom. It takes someone of experience to recognize a rare situation and to react in an appropriate and measured way.

But even ten years of experience in a narrow field can raise red flags. How have methods changed since the person was trained, and has he or she kept up to date? Have they become stale or jaundiced, or make lazy assumptions? How well will they respond to authority, and to unusual team environments?

As so often, we can find some good examples from the world of sport. Among players, experience is noticeable in someone who is calm, who intuitively reacts to a situation before it matures, and who avoids rash mistakes. Sadly for professional athletes, that advantage is all too quickly outweighed by physical limitations. Notice how the most influential player in the recent soccer world cup was Mbappe, a raw nineteen-year-old with electrifying pace.

Soccer managers have a longer life cycle, but even here experience is not everything. Look at poor old Arsene Wenger, twenty-two years in the same job and plainly overmatched for the last third of his reign. Ferguson did not suffer the same fate – perhaps he was more prepared to update his skills and methods, and perhaps, for all his cussedness, he was a better delegator.

Jose Mourinho is another example. Arguably his methods have become less outdated than Wenger’s, but there is a problem with his attitude. He was always arrogant, but experience has made him intolerably so, at a time when relations between coach and player have changed. And he has become stale. Manchester United should cut their losses as soon as possible.

Then again, it is rare that a first time manager is immediately successful. They need experience. Without it they make mistakes, fail to see trends and struggle to build up respect.

So, experience has value, up to a point, and a degree of experience is a requirement for success. What I am wondering is whether the value of experience compared with other attributes is less than it was before, and whether the required degree of experience has reduced.

I came to this thought by considering choir conductors. I have had the benefit of working with several in recent years, and have been involved in some conductor searches as well. I believe I have noticed some trends.

Firstly, the overall standard has massively improved. When I think of the conductors I worked with ten years ago, their flaws are obvious. Nowadays, nearly everyone is technically strong. There is a range, but the low, median and high points of the range have all gone up.

But the other trend might be more surprising. Most of the best conductors I work with nowadays seem also to be the least experienced, so long as they have had a full training and at least a year or so working on the human side. This contrasts with just five years ago. I remember a particular conductor search. There were some tired candidates who had not kept up with modern methods. But there were also many held back by lack of experience, rather raw, just as rookie soccer players can be – locked into one or two dominant methods, afraid to improvise, prone to errors and immature with leading elders. This seems to have changed with the next cohort, many of whom exhibit none of those weaknesses.

So why might that be? I can think of several reasons, many of which feel compelling to me. College teachers have improved. This may be because they can use smarter tools, explore what works and learn from peers around the world, all supported by video and audio technology. Their pupils can learn more quickly, mainly because their opportunity to practice and get feedback has exploded because of the same media. Perhaps both groups have also improved their relationship skills – there may be less hierarchy and fewer dogmatic approaches, as well as greater curiosity and respect and ability to assimilate feedback. All of this will apply after college as well. The developing conductor can travel to observe more, can use youtube to observe themselves and others, and practice in more diverse situations. It is possible that we elders have improved as well, more ready to offer respect to a new generation.

Meanwhile, some conductors with experience can be shown up in comparison. Choristers needs have progressed, in repertoire and in rehearsal methods, and we have shorter attention spans and value technology aids. In this new environment, tried and trusted methods can suddenly appear rigid and less effective.

So the faster pace of change, improved teaching, and technology-assisted practical learning may have partially inverted the experience curve, or at least moved its tipping point. The emerging conductors can now develop more quickly, so that they can aim to be as effective in a year or two as their predecessors could be only after ten or more years of experience. And the value of those ten years may also be diminishing, as good practices change more quickly. I observe this every week; now I can start to understand what lies behind it.

But of course these trends are not restricted to the field of choir conducting, but affect almost any professional field. Whether it is surgeons requiring keyhole expertise, or engineers using internet-enabled instruments, or accountants challenged by globalization, most fields are changing quickly, while new cohorts have the opportunity to develop more rapidly. Such universal skills as research and line management have changed beyond recognition, and the kids are showing the way forward.

The consequences are exciting but unsettling too. Overall, progress will be quicker. But we can see how my generation is protecting its positions and how that slows progress down and creates conflict. Many countries still have labour laws and practices that leave people in charge who are no longer the optimal choices. Whole industries are losing out as a result – whose management team do you trust to win the war over self-driving cars, Ford’s or Google’s? Go even wider, and you can extend this to countries – Italy or China?

And when the next recession comes, as it will, and automation drives more holes into the model of regular employment, there will be social tensions. Still, overall we should celebrate; the inversion of the experience model only accelerates progress further. And I’ll continue my policy of looking out for younger conductors to work with.